


An eternity could not be long enough

by NicePlaceToBe



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Greek Religion & Lore Fusion, F/M, Fluff, Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), dont judge me, look its cliche but what isnt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:15:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26806462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NicePlaceToBe/pseuds/NicePlaceToBe
Summary: “What is this place?” She reached out to run her hand along the stone walls, covered in strange runes and etchings she didn’t understand, cramped figures and equations.“If you touch that you have to redo these calculations.”Vanya spun quickly, drawing her hand in away from the wall. “Who are you?”Five laughed. “This is my home. The better question is, who are you?"Or:The Hades/Persephone AU that I HAD to write because I am *that* person
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 64
Kudos: 306
Collections: The Occult Academy





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ok soooooooooo. Anyone who has read my work might notice I've been a bit absent from the fandom recently- let's call it a much needed mental health break and a writer's block combined. 
> 
> Anyway, love the activity around this pairing at the moment, and this AU kinda crept up on me. I'm considering turning it into a multi-chapter fic, but I'm not sure... comments or kudos could be very persuasive. 
> 
> Let me know what you think! I thrive off kudos and comments make me smile so wide it hurts

Five wasn’t a big believer in the mentality that everything happened for a reason- he’d had too many run-ins with those pesky women weaving to think the Fates had his best interests in mind. Case and point, while the rest of his family enjoyed the wonders of Olympus, Five had drawn the short straw and was stuck running the Underworld for the rest of his life- which was looking terribly long.

It wasn’t so much that Five disliked the dead- he’d been good, during the war, at organising deaths, and it turned out the management of these things wasn’t so much harder. In fact, Five quite enjoyed that he was easily the most powerful of all his siblings (he shared his domain with no one but the souls he ruled, and even those who evaded him couldn’t hide forever; in the end, he would have them all).

Still. Would it have killed Luther to get him some decent coffee down here? If he- or Diego, who was always looking to one up the king of all the gods, still a little salty about being officially declared Number Two and relegated to looking after the oceans- did, Five would be far less inclined to consider a rebellion.

But for now, Five was willing to be patient.

Elysium was a wonderful sight, the Styx flowed nicely and there was no pressing danger he need try and save his family from- however much they may resist and deny his help in following the avoidance of a disaster, both among the gods and their precious side-project of humanity. Five could appreciate balance; his job was to create order, a give and take that Luther (in typical Luther fashion) hadn’t considered when he decided to take out his pent-up aggression at their father Reginald in the creation of humans.

So while Five could understand his role, it didn’t mean he had to _like_ the constant dampness and darkness that came along with it. His calculations for when the apocalypse would arrive, when everything would go back into Chaos and how to _stop_ that, kept Five busy. And while the white writing against the dark walls of his home was a nice echo of his obsidian throne, it did little to brighten the place up.

As much as Five hated to admit it, he was a little lonely. His family was scattered everywhere, and Five was bound to looking after the dead for all of eternity, with his dog Dolores as his closest companion. (And fuck, even Delores was getting sick of one-sided conversations.)

But most of all, Five was fucking _bored_. 

The Underworld was dark and it was cold and nothing exciting seemed to have happened in all the centuries Five had been living there. He was restless; something raced in his blood, urging him that there had to be something more. And for hundreds of years, he didn’t know what it was that he was waiting for.

That is, until the day he met her.

-

Vanya was bored.

The day was bright, the house empty, and she was bored.

It wasn’t that she had a lack of things to do. She _could_ practice her needlework, or refine her musical arts- Vanya was proficient at both the lyre and the pandura, though she couldn’t help but feel as if neither were quite right for her- or go out to help her mother.

The thing was, Vanya really didn’t want to.

It wasn’t anything in particular that she was tired of. It was just…. Her life felt so undriven; as if she were wasting time, not living it at all. It probably didn’t help that- even though she came from one of Olympus’s greatest- Vanya was just ordinary. Vanya knew her mother was trying to help, but Grace had never been the best at emotions. Being told there was quite simply nothing extraordinary about her, so she best just enjoy the simple things in life, was not something Vanya enjoyed hearing. In fact, it was a death sentence, to live her life in peaceful mediocrity, as nothing greater than _human._

(Vanya tried not to flinch at the way Luther spat the word at her mother; how Allison scrunched her nose before leaning into her husband; how Klaus always blinked in surprise, whenever he resurfaced from his wine-stupor and dancing nights, as if he had forgotten she existed; how Diego got uncomfortable and Ben awkward, offering her music lessons on his invention, the lyre, or a ride on his back while he made use of his winged footwear rather than talking about anything at all.

Vanya did her best to ignore that she was so obviously the shame of her family, and threw herself into the easy lull of music. Not just when she was playing, but in the symphony of springs and the wild swirling tempests that were brought on by Luther’s fickle temper. Vanya couldn’t help but hear the most wonderful things, but sometimes she wondered if she was the only one who could hear it.)

So Vanya wasted her youth in fields of gold, valleys of green overrun with flowers and the deep forests. She watched Grace coax flowers into bloom, sow life into a landscape that was barren and empty (and Vanya wished she could create something- _anything-_ like that). And now that she was older, Vanya had learnt how to accept she would never be extraordinary- or, at the very least, how to avoid Grace when the harvest was coming, as it was now.

So Vanya was bored.

And there was _nothing_ Vanya wanted to do less than hang around and wait for her mother to turn up, probably full of stories and ready to go to Olympus for an awkward family gathering. So instead of waiting, Vanya decided to get out. The surrounding countryside was gorgeous, the day was young and Vanya had nowhere to be- a walk would do her some good.

She wandered beyond the fields, down into a forest set into the hill- winding through the trees and under the dappled sunlight until she stumbled upon a river. It flowed, smoothly and almost hypnotically- the way the water ran over the stones made music dance through the air.

Vanya was entranced.

And somehow, she found herself following it, all the way to where the light was blotted out by the forest, where the river flowed down into a rocky passageway.

(She could have sworn that yawning cave entrance wasn’t there before, but she must have just missed it- surely the earth couldn’t just crack open?)

The rock had changed somewhere along the riverbed- from the dark grey of wet stones to a shining black, soaking in all the light of the dwindling sun’s rays. Vanya paused in the passage entrance, hesitating. Grace’s warnings whispered in her ear, of the dangers she faced as a human, as an ordinary being. Vanya knew she should turn back, that the point of no return could be closer than she thought- and yet…

Vanya couldn’t bring herself to walk back to their cottage and sit through another harvest, another dinner at Olympus, another day where she was living but not truly alive. The music she could hear in the water’s flow as it sung over the rocks made something stir in Vanya’s blood, made her feel _something_. (It was almost as if there was a force pulling her to the cavern, a tug in her gut like the strings of fate drawing in closer to the tapestry of Time.)

Well, Vanya did say she was bored.

-

Five had been having a perfectly normal day- the weighting of souls, the admission of more from the Fields of Asphodel into Elysium and other general day-to-day jobs kept him fairly busy. Unfortunately, some tasks crept up on him, like grooming Delores which was always a royal pain because she had three heads and a big problem with getting washed, especially in the Styx so unless Five could offload that job-

Five paused in his musing. He had been preparing to take the afternoon- though daytimes didn’t _really_ apply for the Underworld- off, when he was jarred out of his thoughts. _Something was wrong._

_-_

Vanya felt as if she walked for an age, following the path that ran beside the river, lit from the walls by torches of the strangest blue fire.

Eventually the path vanished from one side to the other, and Vanya found herself wading through the icy water to reach the path. Further on she walked, the quiet lilting melody of the water leading her along. An immeasurable amount of time later, Vanya noticed the passage beginning to widen, until the river flowed into a pool-like lake, seemingly coming to rest for a moment. Vanya’s attention, however, was drawn away from the water to the cavernous room she was now in, soaring ceilings of a dark rock, illuminated still by the whitish light thrown from the eerie torches.

“What is this place?” Vanya murmured it quietly, but it echoed through the chamber. She reached out to run her hand along the stone walls, covered in strange runes and etchings she didn’t understand, cramped figures and equations sprawling across all parts of the room.

“If you touch that you have to redo these calculations.”

Vanya spun quickly, drawing her hand in away from the wall. “Who are you?”

Five laughed; it had been so long since someone hadn’t known who he was just by looking at him, just by feeling the cold and inevitability of death that he wore like a cloak. “This is my home. The better question is, who are _you?_ And how’d you get in here?”

“I just followed the river-” she replied, examining the man who appeared from the shadows.

Five frowned as he muttered, “There shouldn’t be any way into the Underworld that is unguarded.”

She didn’t seem to hear though as she continued, “-I’m Vanya.”

He regarded her for a moment, noticing her brown hair as much as her general presence, finding the similarities. “Oh. You’re Grace’s daughter then?”

Vanya tried not to sigh, she really did. But her first adventure and possibly the only interesting person she had ever met brought up Grace _._ “And of _course_ you know my mother.”

He was shaking his head almost before she finished. “No, I remember you. Up in Olympus. I had some… _business,_ to discuss with my brothers, and your mother had brought you around.”

Five remembered Vanya from then- small as she had been, but so vibrant. Far too vivid to live in Grace’s shadow, far too interesting to be merely the subset of someone else. Five had always wondered what happened to her, the girl who had taken the lyre from Ben’s hands and played it so wonderfully and laughed so brightly Five swore the sun shone brighter. And now, here she was, so many years later. Still brown-haired and bright-eyed, but more contained. Smothered, almost.

Vanya blinked; no one ever remembered her. But something else had been triggered in her memory. “Your brothers? Does that make you…. and this would be-“

“The Underworld, yes. I’m Five.”

Vanya looked at him for a few long seconds, eyebrow raised. “I thought it would be bigger.”

Five scoffed. “Well this is just one of my side rooms. I can show you the rest, if you’d like?”

Vanya surprised herself. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

-

Down through the dark chambers and rocky passageways, the water ran beside them until it opened even further into a brilliant immense cave system, split down the middle, one side open fields and the other city stacks.

Five took her to Elysium. The golden glow of thousands of contented souls made the city hum against the darkness, light of lives well-lived shone the path clear ahead of them, even as they wandered on the banks of the Styx, side-by-side.

“So what was all the writing on the walls back there?”

“I’m trying to figure out when the apocalypse will come, and how to prevent it,” Five explained. “That’s actually all from my last attempt- once I figured it out, I fiddled around to change the timeline. So now I have to figure it out again from scratch.”

Vanya tilted her head thoughtfully. “So you just keep working out when the end of the world is meant to come and then stop it until the next one comes along? Isn’t that a little depressing?”

Five frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Well, it sounds like you just spend most of your time worrying about something that no one else seems concerned about. If you’re putting all that work into stopping the apocalypse, surely you want to actually enjoy living?” Vanya asked.

“I’m God of the Underworld. _Living_ isn’t exactly my strong suit.”

Vanya laughed lightly at his dry tone. “So why do you care about the apocalypse then?”

Five cast his eyes over his domain, the broad expanse that was his alone- he wondered why that thought made him feel just a little cold. “The apocalypse might not affect me, but my family needs my help. They don’t want this time to end.”

Vanya hummed. “Everything ends though, doesn’t it? The end of something is the start of something else. It’s all about balance- I thought you as the god of the Underworld would know that.”

Five rolled his eyes. “Great I’m getting lectured by a fetus.”

“Hey, I’m not that young! I know you’re a god or whatever but that doesn’t make you-“

_“I’m_ a god? Aren’t you too? Grace is your mother isn’t she?”

Vanya stared at him for a moment. “No. Well, I mean yes. Grace is my mother, but no I’m not a god. I’m ordinary.”

Five stopped walking. “What?”

Vanya tried to ignore the pricking behind her eyes, that she had to say it again and yet always made her feel uncomfortable no matter how many times she admitted it. “I mean I know you’re out of the loop down here but it is the great family shame. Grace’s mortal daughter and all that.”

Five’s brow wrinkled. Vanya, ordinary? The Vanya who had played the lyre and the trees had seemed to bend out of her way, the Vanya who when she spoke swirled up tempests. Maybe Five had been out of the loop for a while but surely, surely not. There was something about this woman- the laughter in her voice, the iron in her eyes- that told him if there was anything Vanya was, it most certainly wasn’t ordinary.

But maybe he was wrong. He hadn’t been out of the Underworld, much less to Olympus, in years. The most contact to his family was Ben, when he was being the messenger, or if Luther decided it was time to puff up his own feathers. Five certainly couldn’t say he knew the happenings of the above world, so he really couldn’t pass judgement. And yet…

“Hmm,” Five started walking again along the winding path of the river. “And how is your music going?”

Vanya tried not to show how surprised she was- it seemed to be a common theme when she was with Five. It was strange, that she had spent so little time with him and somehow was so comfortable in his presence, in the easy sparring of quick banter.

“It’s good. Ben’s given me some lessons on the lyre and I’m not bad at the pandura…”

“But?” Five asked, sensing something more. It had been so long since he’d had someone this interesting to talk to, and he certainly wasn’t going to waste the opportunity by being dry.

Vanya sighed. “Neither of them feel quite right, you know? I don’t really have anything that’s mine. I’m just Grace’s daughter or Ben’s student or the mortal god.”

_(No one wants me,_ she wanted to say, but she didn’t.)

“I know the feeling,” Five said.

(They always wanted the god of the Dead, of the Underworld, the smartest god, the god who was perpetually alone. Never Five. Not even his own family. It hurt less when FIve didn’t think about it.)

Five wondered how much it would take to bribe Ben into bringing him some wood down to the Underworld, maybe some hair as well. He was suddenly feeling the urge to carve something- and he’d never tried his hand at making musical instruments. Maybe he could make something just for Vanya.

“It’s beautiful here,” Vanya said, filling the silence as they gazed upon the Underworld.

“It suits me,” Five said. “Have you met Delores?”

-

“Who would have thought the god of the Underworld would be such a pushover?” Vanya laughed.

“I can’t believe Delores preferred you over me,” Five griped. “And I am _not_ a pushover. I’m the god of the Dead. I’m in charge of thousands of souls. I rule Tartarus for crying out loud.”

“Yes, you’re the big bad Five who coos at his puppy-“

“A three-headed hound of Hell-“

Vanya raised an eyebrow at him, gesturing at the drool across her dress from Delores’ head in her lap. “A truly terrifying sight,” she deadpanned. “I can’t believe people are scared of her. Or you, for that matter.”

Five decided not to prove her wrong, that he was ruthless and blood-thirsty. Vanya wasn’t someone he wanted to be afraid of him.

(He needn’t have worried; like souls never are afraid of the other.)

“If you come back you can take her for a walk. She likes going for a run.”

“I will,” Vanya nodded.

Five tried not to count it as a promise.

They wound their way back up from where they had come, to the room where the river fell still.

“So. I guess this is where I leave you.”

Vanya smiled, bright white against the dark rocks. “I suppose so. Will I be able to come back?” Vanya asked the second part hesitantly, not daring to look him in the eye as she shifted her weight uneasily from foot to foot.

Five grinned. “I’ll let Delores have free rein.”

“I appreciate that.” Vanya twisted her foot into the floor- her feet were still wet from her passage through the river and her shoes were lined with the sand and rocks from the floor. “Sorry, would you mind if I just-“

Vanya bent down to pull off her shoes- her feet couldn’t get anymore dirty- but started to fall off balance. She threw her hand out to steady herself on the wall.

“Hey!” Five caught her hand, instead steadying her himself. He tried not to show the heat rising in his cheeks, “I did tell you that if you messed up those equations you’d have to redo them.”

Vanya laughed a little breathlessly, suddenly nervous though she couldn’t put her finger on why. Her fingers felt clumsy as she undid the clasps, first left then the right. She straightened, hanging her shoes off two fingers. Her gaze caught on his, and Vanya couldn’t help but notice his eyes- grey and blue and stormily intense and only focused on her. Imagine that.

She felt something- just like that pull in her gut, the stirring in her blood as the music of the river filled her ears. For some reason, Vanya felt as if something in her stomach was flying, stretching, growing. It was odd- but not necessarily bad.

She pulled back, drawing her hand back in to brush off her clothes. “Right. Well. Should I pass on your warm greetings to your brothers?”

“Sure. I think you can nail the delivery so they understand the sarcasm they were sent with.”

Vanya smiled once more, nodding slightly. “I guess I’ll see you then, Five.”

As she vanished into the shadows, Five let out a breath. Vanya was quite something. Before he could turn around though, and go back to his musing of the schematics of washing Delores, something caught his eye. Something strange for the Underworld.

A small flower. Pearly white against the darkness, growing amongst the rocks. Five leaned down to look at it and the grin playing on his lips grew as he noticed something. The flower was born in Vanya’s footprint.

_Just ordinary, huh?_

Five straightened, turning with a bounce in his step. So much to do- brothers to wring for information, dogs to wash and a woman to wait for, even if it did take an eternity.

Well, Five did say he was bored.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my lord I got an amazinggg response on the first chapter thank you so much! 
> 
> I'm glad you all seem to like this AU as much as I do and I think I have a plan so I will now subject you to the second chapter of my Hades/Persephone inspired AU, a byproduct of being obsessed with Greek mythology when I was younger- because who wasn't? 
> 
> Comment and leave kudos to let me know what you think, thank you for reading!

_I really have too much free time,_ Vanya mused as she made her fifth journey down the river passage.

When she had told Five she would come back, she hadn’t actually thought it would be so soon. It was one of those things you say- _of course I’ll see you soon, I loved your present, your hair looks lovely today-_ for the benefit of the other person, to soothe the awkwardness of social encounters. Vanya had always wanted to return to the Underworld, but with Grace being so meticulous and having so much of her time already accounted for, she didn’t think she would make it back for at least another few weeks. She figured not going as often would make it all the more special _to_ go- to see Delores and the Styx and _Five_ \- and she certainly didn’t want to wear out her welcome.

Vanya was going to be strategic about this, to make sure that Five actually did want her there- or at the very least, had an introductory period where he could warm to her company because, let’s face it, he wasn’t exactly getting his door knocked down with visitors. So Vanya was organised and thoughtful and ready to make the Underworld a little vacation spot. Unfortunately, no one informed her family.

(And Vanya sure as hellfire wasn’t going to be the one to mention it- _hey Mom remember the god of the Underworld who you always told me to avoid and everyone is terrified of? Turns out he’s pretty funny, the Underworld is really cool and I’m gonna head down there now- see you at dinner!_ That was _not_ a conversation Vanya was going to have.)

So naturally, of course Grace had to decide that it was time to get more in touch with the extended family- which of course just meant Vanya was spending as much time as _humanly_ possible not at home. Hence the frequent visits to the Underworld. Oddly enough though, Five hadn’t seemed to mind her presence, like it even- certainly a strange experience for Vanya at least, when she so often was the extra hanging on the edges of someone else’s coattails. Being wanted was a nice change.

She had refined her technique by the third trip into the Underworld; shoes weren’t a necessity but coins absolutely were- much as it made Five roll his eyes and tell her to stop hacking the system, Vanya liked to slip them to some of the souls waiting in the Fields of Asphodel who had forgotten their fare to cross the Styx.

(“If you keep doing that,” Five would say with a sigh, “I’m not going to have enough places to put them.”

“Sounds like a you-problem,” Vanya would sing-song. “And a pretty major system flaw if you ask me…”

Never mind that Vanya would happily pore over the plans for the Underworld with Five, not just for the challenge but because she was finding herself falling just a little bit in love- every visit, every walk, every time she saw something free and unusual and beautiful- and not just with the Underworld.

“I don’t recall asking-“ Five would say pointedly.

And Vanya would interrupt: “You didn’t have to!”

Five would half-lecture her on the ways of the world and Vanya would tell him just because he was god of the Underworld didn’t mean that he had to be dry as bones and Five would retaliate something similarly smart-arsed. It was comfortable and familiar but _fun_ at the same time- Vanya finally had someone to sharpen her wits against.)

Wading through the water, Vanya pulled up her skirts slightly before alighting onto the shore. As she did so, she was almost bowled over by a great ball of black fur with three heads.

“Dolores!” Vanya bent down to give her a scratch around one of her sets of ears, making the tongue of that head loll out happily while two other sets of eyes settled on her watchfully. “Do you know where Five is?”

Following the wagging tail, Vanya was led by Delores through the winding rock passages of Underworld into the large expanse it opened onto. Delores didn’t take her into Elysium or the Styx, but rather down through Five’s quarters, his office and throne room (because he _would be_ that pretentious just because he could), where Delores finally stilled and let out a single bark.

“Delores?”

Vanya frowned, spinning as she tried to locate where the shout had come from- Delores had no such trouble. She bounded off and Vanya trailed behind her as they made their way through the maze-like structure. Rounding a final corner, they came upon Five sitting on the ground against a wall, who upon catching sight of Vanya and an expectant Delores, he laughed, gesturing them to come sit.

Vanya carefully picked her way over as Five had strewn his- she assumed very important and _life-containing-_ paperwork all over the floor; Delores simply walked over it, and Vanya got the feeling it was a regular occurrence as the dog settled herself on a nice pile of paper.

“So, not that this isn’t a lovely cave, Five, but I did see you had a room back there that some call ‘an office’. You might like to sit in there, on something called a ‘chair’ and you can put all these things on a ‘desk’.”

“Hilarious.”

“I like to think I am,” Vanya put on a mock air of superiority. “So what brings you to this cave?”

Five’s smile was more of a grimace than anything else. “I had work to do and I was sick of being in the same room. Who would have thought there was so much admin in running the afterlife?” He looked around, a little wistfully, as if he wished he could make all the bureaucratic bullshit disappear.

“I’ll help,” Vanya offered, reaching over him to grab a sheet and then reading it. “Should we be interviewing these people?”

Five groaned. “No. Don’t make more work- there should be a file around here somewhere to match the person with, this is all just filing fact sheets and that kind of thing. It’s not hard it’s just boring and time consuming.”

Vanya hummed, thinking. “Well, if you think of it this way, you only have all of eternity to get it done,” she said brightly.

“All of eternity huh?” Five turned to glance at her, already invested in whatever she was doing (and he wondered why the eternity that used to sound like a death sentence was suddenly a possibility). “Well I guess I better get started then.”

-

“You want wood? And hair? I mean I know it gets dull down there, Five, but what are you trying to do?” Ben asked, half laughing. “Have the little ones been trying to teach you how to braid?”

FIve rolled his eyes, “Just get it for me, would you?” He sniffed, “And please, _I’m_ the one running the classes down there. Delores has never looked so pretty.”

(Five elected not to mention Vanya had taught him how, and that Delores had loved the flowers woven through her tail.)

-

“Five. Five. Five. Five.”

“I must have utter silence in order to complete this task,” he replied, not looking up.

“ _Five_ ,” Vanya drawled. “Come on, don’t be so boring. Isn’t he boring, Delores?”

Delores didn’t reply as she gambolled through the long- and _very dead_ , though Vanya supposed that was fitting- grass.Vanya had appeared- something like her ninth visit, though she had very nearly stopped counting- and decided that Five was entirely too shut up for her liking, so she had encouraged him to bring his work outside. To get out here, they had passed the souls crowded on the river banks and come all the way out to nearing the back of the Fields of Asphodel.

“Delores thinks you’re boring,” Vanya goaded, waiting for a reaction. Waiting, waiting….

Five didn’t disappoint. “She does not,” he said, eyebrows raising as he pulled his head out of the documents.

“Well, maybe not, but you’d hate for her to even consider it, wouldn’t you? Let’s do something- you spend way too much time thinking and nothing else, not even enjoying your domain,” Vanya gestured around her. “Let’s play a game! Whoever can find the guy who died the latest wins!” She took off sprinting, only sparing one glance back. “Well, are you coming?”

Five didn’t even have to think about it. “It’s in the bag, Delores.”

“What does the winner get?” Five asked, well out of breath from running all over the Underworld.

(He had only just restrained himself from checking Tartarus in his quest to beat Vanya, but to ease his competitive spirit Elysium, Asphodel and anyone on the Styx was fair game.)

Vanya grinned savagely, “The glory- what else?”

-

In one of her earlier visits, Five had tried to ask Vanya about the flower (which a bit of research had found was a white variety of viola flowers) in the most subtle way he knew how- which, in typical Five fashion, wasn’t particularly nuanced. It may or may not have contained some variation of, _‘So how do you know you’re not a god?’_

Suffice to say Vanya shot him down fairly quickly with some iteration of ‘ _I’ve only been told I’m ordinary for my entire life and can’t do anything particularly special at all. Any follow-up questions on my crushed hopes and dreams?_ ’

Five had then attempted to grind the truth out of Luther, but he had unfortunately proved to be quite tight-lipped about the whole affair. (Of all the times for Luther to decide to grow a backbone-)

His lack of success in information-gathering, plus Vanya’s obvious reluctance around the entire subject made Five wary to broach it again- at least until he had good reason. So Five instead distracted himself with another task- improving his workmanship. He was quite certain of what he wanted to make and how it should look, but it was equally adamant that it would be perfect.

-

It was the visit after she had stopped counting that Five greeted Vanya in the entrance cave where they had first met. He’d finally managed to get through the paperwork of the latest influx of people- a plague or something else, Allison clearly seething with envy about _something_ \- and had a little extra free time, which he’d filled with apocalyptic calculations.

When he saw Vanya, he put down his chalk, brushing his hands off on himself. “I’ve got a gift for you.”

Vanya frowned. “It’s not my birthday.” That was the only time she ever got gifts, because it was an obligation.

“Good thing it isn’t a birthday gift then,” Five said, retreating to one of the corners of the cave where he had stowed it.

“What kind of gift is it then?” Vanya asked, curious.

“A friendly gift.” Vanya looked at Five, nonplussed. He went on, “What, can’t friends give friends gifts just because?”

Vanya didn’t say that she didn’t know what friends did, because she’d rarely had any- she sensed Five felt the same.

“We’re friends?” Vanya said instead.

Five laughed. “I think so.” (This is how you were meant to do it, right? Five didn’t really know.)

“Well, if this is what friends do then I guess I’ve got no choice but to accept your bribe…”

“It’s a gift. We both know I don’t need to bribe you to like me,” Five said confidently, hands behind his back.

Vanya rolled her eyes- and why did that feel so fond? “Yeah, yeah. Maybe I just really like the Underworld.”

Instead of replying, Five held out what he’d had concealed behind his back, an earnest look in his eyes. Vanya glanced up at his face for a moment before reaching out to take it in two hands.

“Did you- make this? For me?”

Five nodded, face giving away nothing but his eyes were a little nervous. Vanya took a steadying breath- surprise and wonder and _happiness_ mixing together- before she studied the gift.

It was wooden, curved and smooth, obviously carefully carved out into a long sort of bridge. Strings were suspended above the wooden base- all in all, it looked a little like a pandura. Vanya plucked one of the strings carefully, listening to the way the note was carried. It hummed nicely against her skin, though it was short and barely lasted at all.

Five handed her a second carved wooden object- similar to the bow of a bow and arrow, but less arched and with infinitely more strings. Understanding, Vanya took the bow from him and drew it across the strings of the new instrument- finding it easiest when she rested it against her shoulder, and then under her chin.

The first note she played wasn’t perfect- it squeaked and sounded like Delores choking on a flower- but Vanya’s grin and the way she threw her arms around Five told him that to her it was.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Vanya said in a rush, unable to stop it- _he remembered what I said about my instruments not feeling right, he remembered what I said and made me something, he remembered_ me _._ “What’s it called?”

“I thought you could name it- it’s yours after all,” Five said, a little breathlessly- and dammit if that didn’t make Vanya’s heart stutter in her chest, just a little.

Vanya shook her head. “No! I couldn’t- surely you were calling it something while you were making it?”

“I was calling it a ‘violin’,” Five relented.

“Pretty,” Vanya commented, the lilt of a question on the tip of her tongue.

“After the white viola flowers? They have a similar shape to the body of the instrument and-“ he stopped himself before he could tell her that they reminded him of her- because they were sunny and bright and thrived wherever they were put. “You can practice here as well, if you’d like,” he finished.

“Are you sure I won’t be disturbing you?” Vanya asked, not noticing Five’s sudden topic change because she was already mentally trying to revise the pieces she knew for her new medium.

“Never.” It was out of Five’s mouth before he could catch it and turn it into something a little less honest, but Vanya’s answering smile made Five feel a little as if he never needed to fear being honest with Vanya.

And so Vanya and her violin- from then on an almost regular addition to the soundtrack of the Underworld after her rapid improvement in the first few weeks- were born.

-

Vanya wandered back home, buoyant from an afternoon of playing the violin and bantering with Five.

“What’s got you so happy, Vanya dear?” Grace asked, interrupting Vanya’s reverie as she passed into the house.

“Just had really nice walk,” Vanya replied distractedly, fiddling with her hair.

“Oh, that’s nice. Did you see the crocuses? I was quite proud of those…” Grace’s voice drifted out of range as Vanya smiled and nodded. “Oh, we have that dinner-“

“Yes, I know on Olympus,” Vanya said, still righting herself. “In a few nights, right?”

Grace gave her a grand smile. “Yes, exactly. I just wanted to make sure you’re ready- especially since they might ask you to play! So we’ll leave at six sharp-“

As Grace settled into her comfortable planning for the great nights of excitement Vanya counted down the minutes, wondering when she might be able to get away again.

-

Vanya relaxed a little as the last note rang, putting down her bow and lowering the violin, letting the tension evaporate from her frame.

She glanced around, taking in the singular beauty of the Underworld- understated and natural and arching- and let a smile break out across her face. Whatever Grace was doing, and whoever she was entertaining, Vanya didn’t care- because she was here, and this moment was hers alone. Well, she amended as she heard applause echoing as it bounced off the walls, her moment and Five’s.

“You sound brilliant, Vanya,” he said, coming out of the entrance where he had been listening from, not wanting to interrupt.

“That’s just a little creepy, Five, to be listening from the doorway-“

“Hey, it’s my kingdom! And I don’t have doors here so how can I be in the way of-“

Vanya continued over Five’s dry reply, “-and no, it doesn’t sound particularly good.” She sighed, “I still can’t quite get that fingering right and it isn’t-“

“Uh huh uh,” Five interrupted, shaking his head. “Don’t do that.” At Vanya’s confused head tilt, he elaborated; “The thing where you say it doesn’t sound good when it sounds great- and if I’m saying it then it must be true because I know absolutely nothing about music. You have _literally_ created an entirely new way of playing and taught yourself everything because you’re the only person who has a violin. So get rid of the impossible standard and take the compliment, Vanya.”

Vanya laughed slightly at his earnestness. “Ok- thank you for the compliment, Five.”

“It almost sounds as if it were made for you,” Five added, a grin pulling at the corner of his mouth.

She rolled her eyes fondly as she raised her violin again. “Something like that. Any requests?”

“Whichever you like best.”

Five settled in against one of the rocks, content to watch her rather than do any of the paperwork in his lap as Vanya closed her eyes and began.

-

Vanya was bored out of her mind.

Actually, she was so bored she wasn’t even sure she had a mind anymore. Maybe she had died and she was destined to spending an eternity listening to other people talk about things she had no interest in while she was almost entirely ignored. Olympus was a brilliant sight- made of gorgeous metals and practically glowing, only the best architecture and so grand it made her head spin- but unfortunately, it seemed the interest was skin-deep. Or, at least, their interest in Vanya certainly was.

Luther was enjoying the finest delicacies on offer, Allison was enjoying playing hostess and reigning supreme, Klaus had his head half in his wine glass and half in the game Diego and Ben were playing, which looked very confusing and seemed to involve a lot of handing over of coins. Meanwhile, Vanya picked at her food while the conversation of who could drink the most wine and still walk in a straight line raged around her.

“-I’ve easily got the most practice,” Klaus was proclaiming loudly.

“Well, I’m the King of gods and the skies so I think that easily makes me number one-“ Luther interrupted.

“I could beat you in my sleep, _number one_ ,” Diego said. “Let’s go, right now-“

“Ok!” Allison raised her voice over Diego’s. “Why don’t we listen to some music?”

Grace, who had been fluffing the coral displays, sent Vanya a sharp look. Vanya could barely restrain her eye roll- she really had been spending too much time around Five.

Allison continued, “Ben?”

Vanya couldn’t say she was surprised. And it wasn’t that she thought she was _better_ than Ben- he literally created the lyre- but it was always just that wasn’t it? Her family never seemed to see her- they saw the mortal, the disappointment, nothing that she actually liked or did. Vanya knew her family cared for her- in their way- but why did it have to feel as if she were invisible, as if they never remembered her?

_She’s…. nice,_ they’d say as an afterthought, with vacant eyes and empty smiles. Always _nice_. Never funny, never kind, never talented. A filler word that means nothing, that is basic courtesy and nothing more, that Vanya was polite and quiet and nothing else. A word that made Vanya _feel_ like nothing- because whoever remembers the girl who was nice?

It was something that Vanya had never associated with herself, because inside she wasn’t respectful or peaceful- she laughed and she cried and she raged internally, a storm that no one else could weather. Sometimes she felt so much- so much anger, so much sadness, so much _power_ \- that it left her feeling breathless, as if there was something tightening in her chest. And the only time it ever seemed to release, to soften, was when she was able to just _be,_ to just exist on her own terms. (Vanya wondered why it was so much easier to be like that in the Underworld than anywhere else. Maybe it was that there had never been any expectations on her, because Five had never wanted someone _nice_ ; Five had always wanted _Vanya_.)

“Vanya!” Luther interrupted her musings. “Have you been helping your mother with the harvest?”

(Always part of someone else, because of course _Vanya_ couldn’t just be her own person.)

“Um, I have but she doesn’t really need my help-“

“Nonsense, what else would you be doing?” Allison asked, seeming genuinely curious.

And it shouldn’t hurt like this, should it? It wasn’t fundamentally hurtful it was just ignorant, and made Vanya’s blood boil just a little because the implication seemed to be that Vanya had nothing else to do, that she was just the servant of the god’s whims.

“I’m not sure,” Vanya said with a smile, tasting a little like ash in her mouth as her face set, her mind went vacant- only a few more hours, and then she would be free from this.

“It’s been a bit of a rough year, there’s been a plague and some pests about,” Grace redirected genially.

Luther groaned. “It’s Five again. Why he decides to embrace such matters I’ll never understand-“

Vanya just managed to hold back her ire- _don’t talk about him like that, he saved you from your own stupidity,_ she wanted to scream, _balance, it’s all about balance_. Why was it that a ‘mortal’ seemed to understand that more than the King of all gods?

-

Once they were safely back at home, Vanya lay in bed, thinking. She never had slept very well through the night- there was always too much she wanted to do under the cover of night. Tonight, however, her thoughts were consumed with _what else would you be doing_ and _does she even get a vote_ and _she’s a child_ and _she’s mortal, she’s ordinary, she’s Vanya._

Vanya swung her feet out onto the floor; screw it. She didn’t need these demons- not tonight.

-

When Five woke up to hear the soulful violin, he half-thought he was going insane; the other half assumed he had gone mad years ago. He nearly put his pillow over his head and went back to sleep.

Nevertheless, the case of Five sanity was not the most pressing issue.He dragged himself out of bed, sparing an envious glance for Delores still sleeping soundly. Following the passages the knew as well as his own hands, Five finally found the culprit.

“Hi.” It sounded more like a moan coming from Five, shading his eyes against the bright torches lit by fire.

“Oh,” Vanya said, stopping her playing. “Did I wake you?

“Just a little,” Five replied, running a hand through his hair in a weak effort to look less dishevelled. “Isn’t it the middle of the night? Time can be hard to keep in the Underworld but I thought I finally had the hang of it, judging by the increments dying people were coming in.”

“Yeah, no, it is,” Vanya said, a little distractedly. Five waited. “I had dinner with the family.”

“Oh.” Five slumped against the wall. “All still pricks then, I assume?”

Vanya laughed, though it was half-swallowed by the sobs that she wasn’t sure why were wracking her frame. “Yep.”

“What did they say?” At Vanya beginning to shake her head, Five added, “No, if you’re down here playing violin in the middle of night they’ve said something and yes it is their fault. What did they say?”

So Vanya told him. About the _what else would you be doing_ and the heavy feeling in her chest and how she spent the whole time Ben was playing mentally practicing her fingerings for violin. It was the kind of honesty that people only give at nighttime, in whispers around the shadows of a fire, because it seems less real than the daylight- as if merely saying aloud it won’t make it real, like it does in the light of the sun; unreserved truth, the confidence to say what we always think but never verbalise.

Hearing about his family made something tighten in Five’s chest, remembering how long it had been since he had seen them. How long it had been since he had been invited- since he had been wanted.

“Sometimes people just don’t want you,” Five said in the silence following Vanya’s confession. “And there’s nothing you can do about it… And it really sucks.”

Vanya felt it banging around in her head, the way he said it was entirely Five but the words- they were ones Vanya had thought. Two cut from the same cloth, the same threads. She didn’t quite know how to reply, so she raised her violin and began to play, closing her eyes.

It started mournful, but the longer Vanya played, the more incensed she got. How dare they make her feel like this, make Five feel like this? To act so high and mighty, as if they could condemn anyone from their thrones, almost comical in their similarities to toys- children, playing at being powerful. The anger, the power she could feel in her blood felt like a river rushing through her- strong and unstoppable, destructive and dark but a weapon that only she could wield. Vanya lost herself, the music and feeling almost one and the same.

The notes became shorter, faster, sharper. It felt like a violent sort of art, to destroy in order to create and Vanya revelled in the way it spiralled, twisted from her instrument. As she got louder, reaching the peak of her emotions, Vanya brought her bow down swiftly and-

_CRACK._

Nearly dropping her violin in fright, Vanya’s eyes snapped opened as she spun to face where the noise had come from. The light caught in it was thrown at random angles as it loomed out of the darkness. Vanya sucked in a sharp breath.

Behind her was a… plant, for lack of a better word. It was a vine, the main stems thick as tree trunks and stretching out across the walls and then into the air. Its branches were gnarled and twisted, reaching towards her like a lecherous bed mate, and it spanned almost the length of the whole room’s width- roughly thirty feet. Intricate as it was, it crisscrossed over itself several times, making a thicket near impossible to get through.

The crack Vanya had heard seemed to have been one such intersection, where the branch had been split clean in half by the force of the other branch, indicating that a) it grew very fast and b) it was not a natural or native previously undocumented special Underworld vine that feasted on dead souls or something similarly morbid that Allison could spin for her houseguests.

It certainly had not been there before.

So. A magic vine that grew in the _Underworld_ but had miraculously stopped growing as soon as Vanya stopped playing the violin.

“Well, I think that means you’re staying for breakfast,” Five said. Vanya spun again, having completely forgotten his presence.

“What… what kind of show are you running down here? Are you trying to kill me? Or is this your latest attempt at interior decorating? Can I give you a hint- it’s not a winner!” Vanya yelled, gesturing wildly.

“I suppose if you did die down here it would be convenient- for transportation and so on- but this is not me; this vine,” Five waved his hand at it, “is all you. I think we have a lot to discuss. So how do you like your eggs?”

_What the fu-_


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sure most people don’t actually read the notes- except to see if the writer has a reason for taking so long to update; which, spoiler alert, I don’t except LIFE. But even if this is the equivalent of screaming into a void for all the people who will actually hear me, I just wanted to say something.
> 
> Thank you so much for all your comments and support- thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you. Knowing that people like my writing is amazing and I space out reading the comments because I KNOW they will make my day and I want to make the feeling last. 
> 
> A really big thing for me is that I want to make my life- and my mind- a nice place to be, and I want to do that for other people as well. So I hope my writing has made you happy and that you know you are loved (however cheesy it sounds, it’s true). I know my writing isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I write because I love it, and also because I hope my words will make other people feel less lonely as well. 
> 
> So, before I get too deep on main as the kids say nowadays, I'll let you read on

“So my mother’s a liar, I have powers and my entire family is either in on the secret or completely oblivious…”

“What, did I miss something?” Five asked, unconcernedly pouring himself a cup of coffee- _at 2 am, what in the Underworld is wrong with you, Five?_

“No, I think we covered all the bases,” Vanya said, poking at her eggs a little distractedly with an expression of disbelief. She put down her fork, “I’m sorry, how do you even know about all this? Didn’t you say you were out of the loop of Olympus gossip?”

“Oh, believe me, I am. I don’t know nearly as much as I’d like-“ Five began.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” The words were out of Vanya’s mouth before she could stop them. She hated that it sounded so weak.

Five hesitated. He put down the coffee and swivelled to face her properly (or as best as he could as they were, sitting on the floor in the throne room- because as Five said- _“What’s the point in having a throne room if you can’t eat breakfast, lunch, dinner and your post-midnight life-changing-chat eggs there?”_ Clearly, there was none, which was why they had settled themselves on the polished black stone floor, far away from the singular obsidian throne that looked too sharp to ever be comfortable).

“I wanted to,” Five confessed. “At first I thought you knew.” Vanya snorted and Five continued, “And then I tried to ask you about it, but you were pretty clear that wasn’t a conversation we were having. I didn’t have any evidence- or any real idea of what was going on or what you could do- so I dropped it.”

Vanya didn’t reply, and the silence stretched out a little longer. Five felt the rest of the reason teetering on his tongue- because while all that was true, there was one thing that stopped him from bringing it up. “I didn’t want to lose you.”

“What?” Vanya asked, startled by his admission.

“I didn’t think you were going to come back,” Five admitted. “And I didn’t want to scare you off. I didn’t want you to think I only cared about you because of some powers you might not have even had. You were the first friend I’d had in decades.”

Vanya seemed to think about that for a moment.

Finding out her entire life had been a lie was… emotional, to say the least. Her mother- who had always been so focused on things being perfect, on Vanya not missing things up, on creating one big, happy family on Olympus- was a liar. Grace had _lied_ to Vanya her entire life. Luther almost certainly knew about it- as did Allison- and Klaus and Ben were accomplices, if not outright helpers in covering up the truth. Everyone she had trusted, everyone she had _known_ , who she had wanted to impress and matter to, had been lying to her all her life.

And Five, someone she had always been warned away from, who she had been told to keep away from, painted as the ultimate villain; Five, of the Underworld and the violin and sarcasm as an art form, Five was the one who had told her the truth, even if there had been mitigating circumstances. Vanya could understand why he had been unwilling to bring it up.

She favoured him with a small smile and held out her cup- a silent peace offering. Five, who had been watching her carefully, immediately filled her mug, cautiously offering his own smile.

“Plus, when I was first… entertaining the idea, I asked Luther as much as I could about you without rousing suspicion. As it was, I think he still suspected something- which is truly insulting because come on, it’s _Luther_ \- sorry not the point,” he added at Vanya’s eye roll, “but if anyone thought you were anywhere near me they’d flip that I was turning you to ‘the _dark_ side’.” Five wiggled his fingers spookily for emphasis.

Vanya couldn’t help the laugh that burst out of her at that- possibly the most intimidating god in existence sitting in his throne room, a space dedicated to represent his intimidation and the opulence of his reign, trying to tell scary stories as if he were a twelve year old.

She turned serious for a moment though. “Five?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t keep something like this from me again.” Her eyes were soft but there was steel in her voice- _don’t hurt me like this again, don’t give me a reason to go._

“Ok.” A promise- _I won’t._

(Kings always should know when to bow to their queens.)

They sat in a comfortable silence for a few minutes longer, Vanya’s face ponderous. Finally she asked, with an air of mischief, “Is that throne really necessary?

“It’s my kingdom, isn’t it?”

Vanya hummed, “It doesn’t look very comfortable.”

Five huffed, mock-offended, secretly revelling that their relationship might not be so changed, though also oddly disappointed. “It’s the best seat in the whole Underworld.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Vanya replied wryly.

Five grinned. “I’ll prove it to you. You can sit in it-“ Vanya went to leap to her feet when Five caught her elbow, eyebrow raised “- _once_ you finish your eggs. You’ve barely touched them, and it’s no good to be judging my throne on an empty stomach.”

Vanya scrunched her eyebrows. “I had more important things to be doing-“

“Like grilling me for information, I know. Now you don’t though, so eat up. I promise I’m not a bad cook.” At Vanya’s skeptical look he amended his statement, “Alright, I’m not _that_ bad.”

-

“I don’t understand why you don’t just put a pillow on it. If this is some weird need to prove yourself superior by not being affected by cold-“

“Hey, I’m comfortable in myself. I just don’t need a pillow, my throne is perfect,“ Five shrugged, throwing a smirk over his shoulder as he lead Vanya down one of the many corridors into his personal quarters.

(He tried to force the image of Vanya, grinning broadly, sitting in his throne with her hair mussed and eyes bright, because it did… _something_ to him that he didn’t want to think about right now.)

Taking a sharp right, shaking the thought from his mind as best he could at the same time, Five gestured to one of his guest rooms. Since, even with his best employees on it, the vine was going to take a few hours to clear and it was the middle of the night, Five had offered Vanya somewhere to sleep off one of the weirder nights of her life.

As Five spun to face Vanya, she nearly smacked into him, making her next words come out a little breathlessly in their close quarters, “I could think of at least three jokes about you having extra padding or that you’re compensating for something, that I’m too much of a delicate soul to make.”

Five breathed a laugh, trying to ignore the way his heart seemed to be thundering in his chest. “How kind of you. Is this room alright for you?”

“It’s perfect. Thank you, Five. Good night, I guess.”

“I mean, it’s technically morning-” Five grinned at Vanya’s unimpressed look “- but good night, Vanya.”

-

Vanya hated that the bed was so comfortable, she hated that she was so tired and she especially hated that despite all this she still couldn’t go to sleep. Thoughts- stray rubble in the wreckage of her familial relationships- wouldn’t leave her alone; her head was just too damn loud.

( _What else would you be doing_ and _practice for Olympus, Vanya_ and _Grace didn’t tell you the truth_ and _you’re mortal_ and _you have powers_ and _sometimes people don’t want you_ and _how do you like your eggs_ and _I didn’t want to lose you_ and _don’t keep something like this from me_ and _ok_ and-)

So for the second time that night, Vanya found herself sneaking out of bed.

She wasn’t even really sure what she wanted to do- maybe just make sure she wasn’t alone, that there was someone with her in this night that didn’t seem to _stop_ throwing punches, maybe just to feel as if there was hope, as silly as it sounds, that peace of mind surely couldn’t be that far off. (There’s something so lonely about being the only one awake, as if you are the only person alive and yet somehow missing out on something else.)

Vanya carefully picked her way out of the guest room, sparsely decorated with wooden furnishings, and down the dark corridor, trying to avoid making sounds on the tiles as she stole over them. (Some corner of her mind noted that these wide hallways would be excellent for sliding across in socks, but she filed that thought away for another day.) Vanya paused as she rounded the corner, hesitating in the doorway to see a double bed with two lumps- one large and a slightly smaller one other shaped like a three-headed dog. There was some relief- _you are not alone, you are safe, breathe-_ in knowing that Five was still here (an irrational fear, but fears often are), but also a bit of shame, a bit of guilt; she shouldn’t wake him.

Fortunately, that was never something she needed to worry about with Five- an insomniac even before living in the Underworld.

“That’s just a little creepy, to be watching from the doorway, Vanya,” came a muffled observation.

(Vanya had to hide a smile at that- _he listened and he remembered and why did that make her heart hurt?)_

“Sorry, I just-“

Five sat up slightly, looking at her blearily. “What’s wrong?”

_Not go back to sleep, Vanya_ or _Why are you still up_ or _We have a big day tomorrow and it’s vital to get eight hours rest_. (Though Vanya hadn’t really expected Five to be like her mother, perfectly passive and perfectionist and digging salt into the wounds with a bright smile.) Just _What’s wrong?_

“It’s nothing really,” she fiddled with her dress. “I just can’t sleep,” Vanya admitted. “My head’s too loud.”

Five ran a hand through his hair, making it look even more dishevelled- ruffled and sitting at strange angles. “Well, I can’t promise anything, but Delores is the fiercest guard-dog in all the Underworld- she might be able to fight off the demons.”

Vanya thought it rather unfair that the god of the Underworld was allowed to be so… _adorable?_

Wordlessly, he pushed down the covers beside him- and Vanya, at once understanding the non-verbal invitation, hesitantly took it. Crossing the room and settling under the covers, she glanced at Five to find his eyes already on her.

Even in the shadows, his eyes were blue- like the colour of the sky and cornflowers in the fields and the bluebells in the forests. They were the colour of spring and Vanya’s breath seemed to catch in her throat for a long moment as she noticed she could feel his body heat, less than two feet from her. His breath seemed to shorten, and Vanya could have sworn she saw an expression- of want, of lust, of love and loneliness and tenderness- steal across his face. With her eyes on her and his scent- of earth and fire and the cold that you feel like you can’t breathe enough of into your lungs- surrounding her, she was almost certain something- _anything_ \- was going to happen.

But Five moved back, easing onto his side of the bed as Delores resettled herself between the two of them. There was silence, and Vanya marvelled at how you could be so close to someone and yet seem a million miles away.

“Thank you,” she said into the darkness.

There was no response.

(But as Vanya slipped into her dreams, she thought she heard words like _You never have to thank me, not for caring about you_ in a whisper, distorted as it was. And though she might not remember it in the morning, as Vanya fell asleep she could have sworn she felt a kiss, feather-light, on her forehead.)

-

Five sat in his kitchen in the dark.

Outside, the city glowed, and the grass waved with the movements of lost souls. Five couldn’t bring himself to care. All he could think of was his bed, Delores lying there with _her,_ how her scent of lavender and honey and _Vanya_ would linger and he wouldn’t be able to sleep for weeks but wouldn’t be able to sleep without it.

He lay his head on the cool marble counter top, hoping it would calm the raging storm in his head, of feelings and thoughts he never wanted but now couldn’t get rid of and didn’t want to.

( _He could never have her…)_

Five closed his eyes and tried not to think about how empty the place felt without her, about why he even noticed it now.

(… _But he loved her.)_

He tried to imagine a life without her. It didn’t feel impossible, but like a life he wouldn’t particularly want to live- it was the eternity he used to dread. Five slumped into the counter.

( _Fuck_.)

-

Vanya woke early to an empty bed.

Tiptoeing out to the kitchen, Vanya found Five buried in paperwork.

“Are you alright?”

Five’s head jolted up, catching on Vanya’s slight and sleep-rumpled frame before averting his gaze. “Hi. Yes, I’m fine. Did you sleep well?”

Vanya nodded. “How did you even get such comfortable beds down here?”

Five’s voice was wry. “I have my ways. We should probably get you home, unless you want to explain to your mother you were sleeping in the bed of the god of the Underworld.”

Vanya ignored how the implications made her heart beat just a touch faster, how her cheeks felt hot. “I’d hate to give her a heart attack so early in the day,” Vanya replied with a similar flippancy.

Five extracted himself from the papers he had sitting _everywhere_ and began leading the way to the cavern. They didn’t get very far, however, before they bumped into someone.

“Handler. Have you got those souls from the village fire yet? Allison was feeling a bit jealous,” Five directed the second part of his statement to Vanya.

Vanya realised this must be the woman (in broad terms) responsible for the collection of souls. Lit by the blue fire of the Underworld, her platinum blonde hair practically glowed, and her lips were a bright red- the colour of blood, Vanya realised absentmindedly. From Five’s accounts, she was efficient, ambitious and vengeful, and thus it was fortunate that she wasn’t often in the Underworld.

“Just heading up there now, boss,” she replied, sarcasm seeming to drip off the last word, as if she resented having to take orders from him, but Five ignored it. “Bit early in the millennium for conquests, isn’t it, Five?”

Five’s jaw clenched. “Not a conquest, Handler. You best be on your way- hate for you to be late.”

She smiled like a cat who got the cream. “On it, boss.”

She breezed down the hall and Five flexed his fingers. “She’s quite a character that one,” he said grimly.

“Why do you keep her around when she’s so...” Vanya trailed off as they resumed walking.

“Well, believe it or not, I’m not exactly getting my door knocked down with resumes. Being a collector of dead souls- not that high-ranking on most people’s dream jobs. Plus, I don’t have to like her if she’s good at her job. All I need to do is pay her- and with the added bonus of being the god of opulence and wealth, that’s not that hard.”

_So do you even like one of the only people you ever talk to?_ Vanya wanted to ask, but she didn’t.

They made it to the cavern and Vanya was half-amazed at how quickly they had managed to clear a path through the plant. Now she could see it was less a vine and more a sort of shrub- Vanya was surprised to see it had bushed up over the night, though it still was a bit scrappy.

At seeing Vanya’s expression, Five shrugged. “Many souls make light work. You’d be amazed at what they’ll do for just a little bit of gold.”

“Right. Do you know what kind of plant it is?”

“I don’t. Gardening is not one of my fortes.”

“I don’t recognise it,” Vanya murmured. She didn’t think she’d ever seen such a plant, though admittedly she hadn’t travelled far beyond her home. She made a mental note to ask Ben- by far the most world-wise of the Olympians- as she pocketed the leaf.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you in a few days,” Vanya said, not quite knowing what to say.

“Take your time, Vanya.”

Vanya couldn’t tell if it was a plea or a promise.

-

By the time Vanya made it home, the sun was just starting to spill over the horizon, the predawn light still making the night (in its strange entirety, and Vanya’s tired state) seem like an odd kind of dream- starting just a little too out of the ordinary to dissolve into madness. In fact, if it weren’t for the dewy grass that quickly made her footprints wet and muddy, and soaked the bottom of her dress, Vanya would have been certain she was still asleep. She slipped inside, almost immediately passing out into oblivion, too exhausted to question anything.

The second time Vanya awoke that particular morning, it was to the sound of voices from the kitchen. Her curiosity- and stomach- roused from sleep urged her out. She slumped into a seat (ignoring Grace’s nearly automaticchiding: “Sit up straight and take your elbows off the table, aren’t you going to greet our guest?”), giving Ben a brief nod before getting herself some breakfast and giving her mother the brightest smile she could muster. And as she sat in the same room as Ben who she loved but had never really understood her, and her mother who she knew loved her but just didn’t show it, Vanya was struck with nostalgia.

It was a little unreasonable, but Vanya suddenly was jealous of the person she had been yesterday. She had been an outcast, an inconvenience, ordinary, yes, but she’d had a place. She’d known where she was meant to be, and what she was meant to do. She’d had people she’d loved and a point to prove, a home and a life she had built, that she knew like the back of her hand.

Now she was sitting in the house she had grown up in and for the first time she noticed the spiderweb-like cracks in the plaster on the ceiling, the grime that had gathered in the corners of the room, the way the floor was uneven, bumps everywhere. She didn’t recognise it. It felt as if she were a visitor, as if this weren’t really her life. And maybe it wasn’t. She wasn’t the person she had been yesterday- or even last night.

Last night, her biggest problem had been Grace always silently expecting more from her, her family never noticing her. And now, Vanya was sitting in the chair she had sat in for every breakfast as long as she could remember, thinking thoughts she never thought she would. Thinking about her not-so-ordinary status, her home that no longer felt like it and the life she had never noticed she loathed.

And yet, outwardly, nothing had changed. Grace chattered and Ben had dropped by and the sun had risen, just as it did every day. It was entirely surreal, that her reality could change so drastically and yet the world would go on.

Vanya _supposed_ she was the same person she had always been. Just now, she knew who exactly that was- and didn’t that make all the difference?

By the time Vanya actually tuned back into the conversation, Ben was asking her, “So what are you doing today, Vanya?”

Her mind went blank. What does one do after a life-changing, revelation-filled night? Everything seemed so… unimportant.

“I thought I might go for a walk, out around the mountains,” Vanya blurted out. “I saw this plant that I didn’t recognise yesterday, do you know it?”

She produced the leaf from the Underworld and let Ben inspect it.

He hummed. “I think it’s a pomegranate. I’ve seen some out on the Isles, but usually they don’t have fruit until autumn or winter. Sometimes we take them up to Olympus, they act as a binding agent- keeps the beauty and life in the place because it binds the gods to the mountain again. Where did you find it?”

“Oh, just up and around in the forest while I was exploring.” Vanya brushed it off. “What are you doing today?”

As Ben launched into his latest adventures of being the messenger god, she nodded and smiled in all the right places, yet she didn’t absorb any of it. Instead, all she could think was _did you know?_ It was somehow so much harder to be near family in knowing the one thing that they had all tried to hide from her. Suddenly, being here felt like she couldn’t breathe, like she was just running time out on the clock and didn’t want to be there.

Finding a pause in Ben’s story, Vanya stood up. “I should probably get going if I want to make it to the mountains for lunch.”

“Sure dear. Just make sure you’re home before sundown so you can do some practice. Practice makes perfect! Maybe you’ll get asked to play on Olympus!”

(And her mother never did relent did she, in somehow- even if it was unintentionally- making her feel as if she was never good enough, to make Vanya so acutely aware of every time she didn’t measure up?)

Vanya swallowed the angry words on her tongue and the defiance in her eyes- it tasted bitter, but she managed it with a smile. Practice makes perfect, indeed.

Ben watched a familiar scene unfold. A mother and a daughter, dancing around the things they never knew how to say, because sometimes love just isn’t enough.

As Vanya left the house, Grace called, “Be careful, Vanya.”

It was only until she was a fair distance away that it hit Vanya- Grace always said that when she went out on her own, because as a mortal, she was far more vulnerable to risk. Except that she wasn’t. Vanya had to sit down on a shaded hill for a moment as she realised it; she was never going to die. She was going to live for an eternity, with a family who lied to her, powers she had no idea what to do with and _herself_ as her best company.

Somehow, even the one grim guarantee she’d been given from birth was a lie. For Olympus’s sake, she couldn’t even spend an eternity with Five because she would never live in the Underworld because she couldn’t _die._ Vanya lay down and stared at the sky through the tree branches, trying to find a way to breathe.

By the time Vanya came back to herself and sat up, the sun was high in the sky and the heat was intense. Underneath her, the grass felt dry. Too dry.

The grass was dead. It was black and the colour of dirt right under her and faded out to a lighter yellow the further away it was. The trees had dropped their leaves, slightly drooping branches. On the ground, the leaves had turned the colour of aged paper.

Everything within her radius had suddenly died.

Vanya couldn’t breathe.

Suffice to say, she didn’t make it back to the Underworld that day.

-

“Ok if I’m a god then why is my blood not golden?”

Five damn near fell out of his throne. His staff were remarkably unconcerned about the bloody apparition that had appeared in the door- then again, their living was made in death. The Handler rolled her eyes and Hazel looked interested while the rest returned their absent gazes to the floor.

Usually, Five would be quite as nonchalant- gore had never bothered him- but it was the first time he’d seen Vanya in days and her clothes were covered in (what he hoped wasn’t her own) gold blood with a wild sort of desperation on her face and his heart skipped a beat and it was _Vanya_.

“Everybody out,” Five ordered. His staff quickly shuffled away- his temper was not famous (incorrectly, but widely accepted fact) for fuelling the fires of Tartarus for nothing.

Vaguely, Vanya realised Five was wearing his crown. She had never actually seen it before- it wasn’t big and golden, set with diamonds as Luther’s was. It was smaller and black, with gold edging as the most ostentatious asset. Abstractly, she appreciated how it offset his complexion and wondered at how the god of opulence had a less pretentious crown that the king of all gods.

(As Five would tell her a few years later, true opulence is determined by value- having all the gold in the world only made one look gaudy. If someone is truly wealthy and comfortable in it, they may settle for good quality and what is understated. Everyone trying to flaunt it is compensating for something)

“What are you _doing_?” Five asked, as he led Vanya to his kitchen, one hand lightly shadow guiding her on her back. “Why are you bleeding?”

He started rummaging through his (limited) medical supplies for bandages, mentally trying to explain away the pit of worry that had opened in his stomach.

“I was coming to play with Delores in the forest and I picked up a stick, you know, for her to chew on. But I was holding it weird and it cut me and my blood is _red_ so I can’t be a god.”

Vanya didn’t know if the tears she was holding back were from relief or disappointment, as she flexed her hand, trying to unsee the dried blood, the colour of a rose blooming brightly, on her skin.

“What are you talking about?” Five asked, still searching for bandages. “And why didn’t you go home? Grace knows more about this than me.”

“I’d say the god of the Underworld knows more about mortal blood than my mother,” Vanya asserted.

Five paused, the conversation computing in his head. “Vanya, what colour do you think your blood is?”

“It’s red, Five,” she said, looking at him as if he were stupid.

(If anyone else had even hinted at that, they would have been on their arse- with Vanya, that visual was just a little too stimulating.)

“No, it’s not. It’s golden. You can see the ichor in it, see?”

“No, it’s _red_.” Five took a moment, thinking about it while Vanya went on, “I think I know the colour of my own blood, oh mighty one-“

“What if you didn’t though?” Five interrupted. “What if someone who knew you were a god and was trying to hide it put a... sort of glamour, on you? Like we do when we talk to mortals, so they don’t get overwhelmed?”

“But why would they just put it on me?” Vanya asked, brows furrowed. “I mean, I guess it’s easier just to do me rather than all my blood but that means that anyone who’s ever seen me bleed...”

She lapsed into silence as Five found a cloth to clean her hand with, cleaning away the blood from the wound. Vanya watched as he carefully dabbed around it, entirely focused. His mind worked furiously, trying to piece everything together.

“They might have said it was an anomaly- to have ichor but not be a god,” Five said finally. “They probably wouldn’t want many people knowing.”

“How come I cant undo it?” Vanya asked. “Could you?”

Oddly, Vanya was vaguely glad that her blood was golden. It was strange to come to terms with, but she liked having something that made her extraordinary, even to Five who had seen just about everything. It had almost seemed as if she had lost a whole part of herself she had never known about when she thought she was mortal once again. Vanya couldn’t help but be a little glad that she hasn’t been wrong- rather like getting dragged into something against your will but you then condemn yourself to it and find yourself actually vaguely enjoying the prospect but then you are told you actually aren’t needed and don’t need to fill in and you can’t quite figure out why you’re sad.

Five poorly wrapped Vanya’s wound- in his defence his experience was mostly with wounds that were too far gone so he didn’t usually have to perform first aid.

“Gods can’t undo other god’s... enchantments, so to speak,” Five said. “So no one could reverse it unless it was the person who put it on in the first place.”

“Right. Who would have done it?” Vanya asked. It was a sterile question, but she couldn’t think of anything else to say. How was it fair that literally anyone else could see herself more clearly than she could?

Five sighed. “I have been on the outs for a while, but my best guess would be Allison. She’s good at this kind of concealment and always did have a talent for squashing the rumours she didn’t like.”

Vanya supposed it didn’t really matter. It wasn’t like she would ever be able to get her to reverse it- besides she had bigger problems, her powers were looking more unpredictable by the day.

Five looked critically at his handiwork. “I think it should be alright.”

Vanya glanced down at the loose bandages. “Thank you?”

Five rolled his eyes. “Don’t sound so enthusiastic. Actually, I’ve got a better idea.”

Five brought Vanya down and out to the River Styx. Before Five could explain why they had come out there, Hazel appeared.

“So this is the girl that’s responsible for my pay raise recently?”

Hazel had very minimal tact- it was part of the reason why Five liked him, but also why right now Five was cursing himself.

Vanya’s eyebrows flew up. “What?”

“Because you give coins to people on the Fields of Asphodel,” Five explained. “Hazel collects them and transports the souls across the Styx to be judged. He’s done it ever since I started here.”

“I was also well due for a pay raise, so your generosity is greatly appreciated. You’d think the god of wealth would have less of a stick up his-“

“Hey, I supply you and Agnes- Hazel’s wife, a mortal, long story-“ Five added in an aside to Vanya, “with ambrosia and loukoumades to your heart’s content. What more do you want from me?”

“I’m not sure I’m getting all the monetary benefits I’m owed, I mean the insurance is just-“

“You’re immortal,” Five deadpanned.

“Is that any reason for chronic back pain or a mysterious future? The one visit to an oracle every century really is taking a toll,” Hazel complained.

“I could give you a fortune and an unlimited amount of oracle visits and you’d still think it wasn’t enough,” Five said.

“Well why don’t you try it and we’ll see?”

Vanya smiled- this was the first person she’d seen in the Underworld to actually give Five a bit of fun, and the fondness of the exchange made Vanya at least a little certain Five had a friend. She hated to think how lonely it was in the Underworld, especially since family never visited. Suddenly, another possibility to explain her blood sprung to mind.

“Don’t you have a job you’re meant to be doing?” Five asked pointedly.

Hazel purposefully directed his next words to Vanya. “At any rate, everyone appreciates your influence, Vanya-“

“Alright, off you pop ,there’s a line building up,” Five said, trying to do damage control.

He swung to face Vanya, not entirely sure what he was going to say. She beat him to it, however.

“Are you lying about my blood so that I keep coming?”

Five’s eyes widened. “ _No_. I wouldn’t do that Vanya.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to say he already had, that he’d done it before, but she didn’t need to- he saw it in her eyes.

Five thought hard for a moment. Decisively, he picked up a rock and cut himself, letting his (literally looking like) liquid gold blood fall onto Vanya’s skin.

“Wha- Five!” She looked at him, seemingly questioning his sanity.

“Not feeling any blinding pains? Your heart slowing? Sudden blindness, ringing in your ears, the fire of hundreds of suns burning in your head? Even a little tingle in your hand?” Five asked.

“No, but what does that have to do- oh.”

“Ichor is deadly to mortals. Since you are decidedly not dead, that means you’re also not mortal,” Five said.

“Sorry,” Vanya said.

“I said I wouldn’t lie to you Vanya. I meant it.” Five’s gaze held Vanya’s for just a moment longer before dropping.

“Wasn’t there a safer way to test that though? I mean, it’s a bit drastic. What if you’d been wrong?” Vanya challenged, getting their relationship back to comfortable banter.

Five gave her a smug grin. “I’m never wrong, Vanya. Besides, on the _very_ off chance that I was, I have the perfect solution.” He gestures to the river.

“Ah yes, water, the well-known and reliable cure for mortal poison.”

“In the Styx, yes, water is the cure for all,” Five said. “If you wash your hand in it, then your wound should heal. With the neat perk that your hand will also be invincible.”

Vanya smiled, dipping her hand into the flowing water, somehow feeling her flesh knit back together.

“Huh,” she murmured in wonder, examining her hand. Not a scar- not even a scratch. “What do you do with an invincible hand?”

“Fill out invincible paperwork,” Five replied as he put his own hand in.

“Well, I’ll help you so it’s double the invincibility,” Vanya said, grinning. A thought struck her. “Oh, I meant to ask you. Why is the tree still in the cavern? I would have thought you’d take it out completely.”

Five shrugged. “I think it adds a nice ambience. How have the powers been going?”

“They’re... fickle. I can only seem to make them work when I’m feeling something strong- and I-“ she paused, not wanting to say it aloud. “I killed plants, Five. I didn’t want to but I was _feeling_ and then it just-“ she gestured vaguely. “I don’t know how to control them.”

“It’s balance Vanya- just like you told me. Your powers create life- but you’ve got to have the flip side to that coin. As for control,” Five hesitated.

He wasn’t sure how much he could help- the kind of repression Vanya had been under in containing her powers for so long was one he never had to deal with. He wanted to, though. There weren’t many things Five wanted, and he wasn’t in the habit of letting them slip away. Then again, Vanya seemed to be his one exception, since she was something he could never have.

“As for control, you’re welcome to practice here. Just like violin.”

Vanya looked at him sceptically. “There’s a bit of a difference between bashing out a tune on the strings and creating giant mutant plants.”

Five shrugged. “Everyone’s got hobbies. I plan out the apocalypse, you do the decorating elements. It’s teamwork.”

Despite it all, Vanya laughed. She had been afraid that somehow, she would lose this.

Maybe, it would grow into something else.

-

It took a few practice sessions for Vanya to be able to definitively say that playing the violin- and noise in general- was what helped her to harness her powers. It seemed to help her to focus in on the kind of energy necessary to access her powers.

Vanya liked to think of her powers as a river- she had the water flowing above, the life she could gift, but also the undertow, the current that she had to be aware of, a balance to be struck.

Upon sharing this insight with Five after yet another cavern was turned into a (slightly less out of control) garden, he encouraged her to access “a drop, not the whole fucking river”. The expletive was probably justified, considering that Vanya had accidentally made vines root Five to the spot, though after she stopped laughing she did make him apologise and let Delores lick his face before she let him go.

Finally, she was starting to get the hang of it- of just picking up a little bit of the water, not the river, learning how to make the water into what she wanted. It was progress, and Vanya couldn’t be more thrilled.

Still, it was a little jarring that she had to practice killing things as well as bringing them to life- to be an expert in one side of her powers was useless, she needed to establish balance within herself before she could use her powers to create it. Sometimes, the scariest thing was how easy it was- that while growing a forest could take her a year, she could kill it in an instant.

It was all about refining her skill. So that particular afternoon as Five played fetch with Delores, Vanya played her violin to grow flower after flower, and then to kill them one by one. It wasn’t so much death as passing into the next cycle of life, Vanya knew. They would go back to the ground, regenerate the earth and then grow again into something new. Still, it always is sad to see the end of an era.

As Vanya made what felt like it must have been the hundredth flower wilt, she sat down, watching Delores chase after a stick that Five had hurled across the fields.

“Are you afraid of me?” Vanya said suddenly to Five.

Five paused for a second, thinking it over. He didn’t really need to, but he knew Vanya would think it was just a reflex response if he replied too quickly, and this was important.

“No,” he said. “But perhaps I’m not the best person to ask.”

“But you’re the person I did,” Vanya pointed out.

Five sighed. He didn’t know how to tell her that he wasn’t afraid of her, but he was proud of her, of how quickly she’d learnt control and how hard she tried and the power she had that she was determined to use for good. He tried to do the next best thing.

“It’s balance. You’re a good person, Vanya. Trust me on that. And the people who are afraid, well- maybe they’ve just never seen anything like you before.”

Vanya’s breath caught a little at how Five said it- certain, but softly, as if he almost didn’t dare tell her.

“Lie back a little,” Vanya said. “Whenever I get worried about my soul, I like to look up at the sky and breathe- this is the next best thing.”

Five nodded and lay back with her, settling themselves in the long grasses of the Fields of Asphodel, far from the souls who rested on the shores.

And Vanya closed her eyes and breathed.

And in this moment- lying back in the Fields of Asphodel with the lord of the Dead by her side, staring up to the ceiling of the cavern that was so high it looked like the sky was black, like it was the middle of the night and time held no weight- in this moment Vanya was truly happy. It wasn’t perfect- rarely anything is- but it was _hers._ This was Vanya’s life, Vanya’s time for the taking. And even if she didn’t know what she was going to do, that was ok. She was content to lie here with Five for as long as she could, because an eternity could not be long enough.

-

“You seem happier,” Ben noted. He’d come down to check on Five as he did every other week, though he seemed noticeably more chatty. “No plagues recently?”

“No,” Five said. “But tell Allison to keep her temper in check, the hypocrite. I can’t keep cleaning up her messes with the mortals or she’s going to wipe them out before they can reproduce.”

“I’ll pass it along, though I can’t promise it will be listened to.”

“That’s all I can ask of you,” Five said, leaning back in his chair.

At Vanya’s behest, he had taken to trying to keep his work in the office in an illusion of work-life balance, though she often came down and broke him out of his routine. He gave a small smile at the thought of her- somehow just knowing she was coming made his heart lift, just a little.

“Ok, what is wrong with your face?”

“What’s wrong with _your_ face?” Five shot back petulantly, as if they were eight year old boys and he had just whipped out his best and most devastating insult.

“You were _smiling_ ,” Ben said, fascinated. “I don’t think I’ve seen that for eons, or at least since the time Luther fell off Mount Olympus.”

Five grinned at the memory. “That was a great day.”

“So what gives? What’s changed?”

Five shrugged. Of course he knew, but he couldn’t tell Ben.

“Is it a girl?” At Five’s averted gaze, Ben gasped. “Olympus, you met a _girl_. Is she dead?”

“No, she is not _dead_ -“ Five snapped.

“Awww, Five has a crush!” Ben tittered.

“No I _don’t_.”

“Do you love her? How does she look in black? Should I start gathering doves? Look at you going all red!”

(He had missed his brother who had grown up too fast and Ben just wished it didn’t have to be this hard. Just for once though, they could be the siblings they were.)

“Shut up, Ben.”

“Have you kissed her? Can I meet her? Did she teach you how to braid? How does she put up with your grumpy mug?”

“I swear to Olympus, Ben-“

(Five would never admit it, but he had missed this.)

-

Vanya hated that she cared- that the people she knew had lied to her still had power over her. That when she wasn’t chosen even to play music for the third time in a row it didn’t feel like a donkey had kicked her in the chest. That she still desperately wished they would just _tell_ her. That as Grace told her she wasn’t going to be home for dinner because they were having “a meeting for gods, you know how they are, dear”, it felt like all the water in the world was in her eyes.

And once again, Vanya as all alone.

She wondered why she was surprised.

-

“Do you ever feel like you are the _only_ person in the universe who is alone?”

The answer fell from Five’s lips almost instantly. “Yes.”

(What he managed to catch before it came out was: _Yes, when it’s late at night and I know it wouldn’t matter if I wasn’t here, when I wake up and spend a day talking to no one but Delores. Yes I know what you mean, when I remember that no one wanted me on Olympus and all my employees wouldn’t care whoever was ruling them and the souls reunite with their loved ones but most of my family dare not show their faces to me for years. Yes I understand, with every breath and heartbeat and day I spend here as a warden of something everyone seems to hate. Yes yes yes ye-)_

Delores was Five’s constant companion, yes, and the processing of souls did keep him occupied, but it wasn’t enough. The Handler brought enough souls to keep her job (maybe more than she strictly needed to, as if she enjoyed the reaping) but never hung around, always on to the next human- she wasn’t much of a conversationalist anyway. While Hazel was better company, the ferry kept him busy- if he wanted to enjoy the luxuries of the corporate life, he needed to collect those coins before the souls crossed over from the Fields of Asphodel; he had noticed a notable uptick since Vanya arrived and Five knew his ferryman was dying (too soon?) to meet the girl that was making him so much money.

Ben almost never came to the Underworld, too busy playing messenger for all the other gods and trying to keep Klaus out of too much trouble. Even now, with Vanya visiting, Five found the emptiness of a hollow life difficult to stave off.

It’s one thing to be alone, but it’s another matter entirely to be lonely.

Vanya sighed. “Do you think you’ll get bored of me? In five weeks or five years or five hundred?”

( _Sometimes people just don’t want you… and that really sucks.)_

Five gave her a long look. “Never.” _An eternity with you could not be enough_ got stuck in his throat.

Vanya smiled though tears- happy ones, this time. “I’ll never get bored of you either, Five.”

“You never know. I might start trying to explain my equations…” Five said, trying to change the tone of the conversation, as socially inapt as he was.

_Even still,_ Vanya wanted to say. “Yeah? Try me.”

Five’s eyes lit up, and Vanya swore it was brighter than all of Olympus.

-

Ben, on his way to visit Klaus, dropped in on Olympus to confirm the dinner they were having next week.

“So it’s me and Allison, you, Klaus, Diego, Grace and Vanya,” Luther said. “A full family dinner.”

“Should we invite Five?” Ben asked, though he suspected he already knew the answer.

“Why would we invite Five?” Luther said, seeming genuinely perplexed.

“He’s our brother, Luther. Isn’t it time we accepted he was right? Someone had to do it- Five was just the one who realised it first. He always was the smartest of all of us.”

Luther scrunched up his face. Logically, he knew Ben was right, but Luther loathed having to admit he was wrong. Stubbornness is all very well and good until you’ve made a mistake.

“Fine. Will you tell him then?

“Why don’t you go down there? It’s been ages since you visited him,” Ben suggested.

There was a pause.

“Sure. I guess I’ll go down to the Underworld then.”

Luther looked as if he’d sucked on a lemon. 

-

Vanya sat in the sun, in the garden out the front of their house. Grace was busy and Vanya was practicing, as was the usual.

She was feeling a little dreamy that afternoon- the kind of content you get from warm honey dripping slowly onto your porridge. She played sweet and long pieces, golden and calming, like grasses swaying in the afternoon sun- though they would have sounded better on her violin, the pandura would have to do. She missed the richness of the sound of the violin, but bringing it home would only raise questions she couldn’t answer.

When Vanya drew the final note of her piece, she noticed the long grass growing, the honeysuckle which had suddenly started to grow on the wall and she smiled. She raised her violin and began again, and so the flowers and the grasses grew, closer to the sun they were inspired by. Vanya couldn’t wait to show Five.

-

Luther awkwardly strolled along the passage, only half-certain where he was. It had been years since he had been to the Underworld- usually when he visited Five, they met midway between Olympus and the Underworld, on Earth. He had a vague idea of how Five’s domain was structured- the caves and caverns opening out into the Fields and city. He didn’t usually take much interest in other people’s affairs, and now Luther was wishing he had perhaps brought someone who knew everything about everything (like Klaus) to guide him.

Luther craned his neck around the corner, eyes still trying to adjust to the darkness of the place coming from the golden glow of Olympus. For the first time, he caught sight of someone else in this labyrinth and he breathed a sigh of relief.

“Hi, I’ve come to see Five? Do you know where he is?”

Her blonde hair bounced as she shook her head, nose turning up slightly. “It’s not my job to track that… _child_. Or his godly side piece.”

Luther raised his eyebrow. There were beings older than the gods, true, but most knew their place. Not many dared to question their sovereignty, especially not ones who worked in such close proximity to Tartarus.

“And who would you be?”

“I’m Death,” she said, unimpressed as smoke seemed to rise from her mouth. “The muscle behind these operations. You can call me the Handler.”

-

After showing off her control to Five, Vanya had immediately decided to take Five up on his offer of redecorating- no reason for the place where the dead live _to_ be dead.

“Ok and what are we thinking here? I’m seeing red, dark purple along the streets?”

“It’s a bit morbid Foive.”

“What better place to be morbid than the Underworld?”

Vanya rolled her eyes as she played a lively and sweet piece, charming flowers into existence along the streets of Elysium. Blue and white dotted down the street, forget-me-nots and hydrangeas, daisies and jasmine all growing together.

“Where to next?”

In the Fields of Asphodel, Vanya sprinkled poppies- “For the ones who forgot to bring a coin, it’ll help them sleep,” she explained.

The banks of the Styx were decorated with reeds and lilies, Vanya played some trees there too, to grow tall and for the souls to play on- children and those who grew up too quickly alike.

They visited the cavern next, the pomegranate shrub was growing well. Vanya played her most beautiful ballad, and fruit fell from the plant.

Vanya offered it to Five but he shook his head. “It’s your tree Vanya. Plus, you told me that Ben said pomegranates can bind you to something. I’m already here for life, it would be wasted on me.”

He pressed the fruit into her hand. Vanya was about to argue when Five’s spine shot ramrod straight.

“Something’s wrong,” he said. In the distance, Delores barked.

Seeing his entire family in the Fields of Asphodel (probably for the first time ever), surrounded by Vanya’s poppies made Five’s stomach drop.

They knew.

“Well, what brings you guys to my neck of the woods?” Five asked

It was rhetorical, but Luther never had been good at knowing when his opinion wasn’t wanted. Like right now, for instance.

“We’ve come to take Vanya to Olympus. It’s what’s best for her.”

“Well it’s nice to see you too, Luther. Long time no see. Allison you look well, Diego looks like a miserable bastard as always and I like your dress Klaus.” Klaus nodded jauntily in acknowledgement. “I saw Ben last week so I can’t say much has changed,” Five assessed, and then turned to Vanya, raising an eyebrow. “Now, Vanya, did you know about this Olympus business?”

“First I’m hearing of it,” Vanya said defiantly. (As they could ignore her for most of her life and suddenly decide that she mattered now, when she didn’t care as much what they thought.)

“Huh,” Five said, shrugging. “Sounds like Vanya hasn’t heard of it. Makes you wonder if it really is the best thing for her- maybe it’s the best thing for someone else.”

Klaus sniggered into Ben’s shoulder and Diego fought back a grin- Five always had been one of his favourite siblings though he never got out enough to see him.

As always, as soon as it looked like things were going wrong one way for him, Luther flew on the offensive.

“What are you even doing with her, Five? Did you kidnap her because you know she’s a god? Or are you in the market for a wife?”

“Am I not allowed to have visitors-“

“Kidnapped? I came down here _myself_ , thank you-“

Ben noticed neither disputed the marriage claim, and a little bit inside him broke. He knewVanya needed help with her powers but surely they could work out _something_. The way Vanya and Five bounced off each other wasn’t something Ben saw very often.

Luther interrupted them. “She needs help, Five. We’ll take her by force if we have to.”

Earnestness leaked into Five’s manner. “Luther, I can help her. I’ve got the best handle on my powers out of everyone and she’s got almost no experience. I can-“

“Five, it’s too dangerous. She’s the goddess of spring- basically _life_ \- and you literally live in the Underworld. You’re _death.”_

Five flinched- both at the inaccuracy of the statement and the way Luther seemed to scorn the words, how his family shrank back slightly at seeming the fire in his eyes.

“It might not hurt to get your opinion once she’s got some basic control, but we need to take her up to Olympus and train her up,” Allison added in the following silence.

“Well, why didn’t you do that in the first place?” Five asked, sarcasm dripping from his words. “You knew she had powers. Why didn’t you tell her?”

Silence.

Five scoffed. “How is it that when I’m the only one telling the truth, I’m still the bad guy?”

“Five, it’s not like that-“ Ben interrupted.

“Really? Because from where I’m standing it looks _exactly_ like that.”

Diego turned to his brother. “Luther, maybe we should just call it a day. Vanya could keep living with Grace and come up on weekends.”

“No,” Luther said stubbornly. “It’s this or nothing. Grace agreed.”

“Then I’ll take nothing!” Vanya exclaimed. “What if I don’t want your bullshit assistance? Look at this place- I’ve got it all under control.”

Unfortunately, that wasn’t strictly true. In her anger, Vanya’s amplified voice was more than enough for the trees to start to gnarl, for a thicket to begin growing behind her.

The Olympians stepped back in trepidation.

“Vanya,” Five said calmly. “Balance. Just take a breath- it’s going to be fine.”

She sucked in a deep breath trying to steady herself- to get only a drop.

Whether she would have succeeded, we will never know. On Luther’s signal, Vanya was snatched from her place- Five reached out a hand, but she had vanished in a hive of godly magic; now more than ever, Five resented the power Luther had over all other creatures.

“Luther did you really need to-“ Klaus began, frowning. Surely taking Vanya by force could only be a bad idea- and she was family after all.

“We can’t risk it,” Luther said. “She’s too powerful. She could have lashed out at us.”

Klaus wanted to chime back in that, well, why would she do _that_ Luther, when we’ve been _so careful_ of her feelings her entire life?

He figured his sarcasm would not be appreciated. Luckily, Ben was thinking along the same lines.

“Why didn’t we just _ask_ her then?”

_She would have said no,_ hung in the air, unsaid.

“We can’t take any chances,” Luther said grimly. “Not now. She’s unstable, she doesn’t know what she wants. We need to keep her safe.”

At the time, Five didn’t understand why Luther looked at him when he said that.

A few seconds later, though it felt like years, he did.

People cage what they cannot control, and cages are funny things.

Vanya’s was a gilded one- some freedom and kept on Olympus with her family, but a cage nonetheless.

That of the god of the dead was his own making, is what people would whisper.

After all, what was Tartarus if not a glorified and eternal cage?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey so this is sloppily and hastily written and my apologies to anyone who was waiting for it, though I doubt you were. 
> 
> But it is done because I need validation- and yes I did take a few liberalities. Hazel is the equivalent to Charon in traditional Greek mythology as the Handler is to Thanatos. In my version, whoever eats in the Underworld is not bound to it, but I played around with the symbolism of the pomegranate to make it fit because I straight up completely forgot about it until after I had written the egg scene and I was attached, ok?
> 
> Anyway, let me know what you thought- comments are always appreciated and I love hearing what people think of my writing. Thanks for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading- I hope you enjoy the final chapter!
> 
> In a random sidenote, because it is Umbrella Academy related, I do know that Elliot Page has come out. As he is still playing Vanya in the next season, my fanfics are pretty much entirely not canon-compliant and I try to keep characters separate from the actors who play them, I continued my story as I started it. 
> 
> Elliot Page is a brilliant actor and you can fight me on it. If you don't support him, I urge you not to read my fanfics simply because if you're alright with the (let's face it, potentially) incestuous vibes that can be read into for this pairing, but not someone being themselves while it has no impact on your life then I think you might need to reevaluate your life choices. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading and let me know what you think!

The first thing Vanya learnt about Olympus was that it had a million and one rooms.

The second was that she didn’t have one.

It was a clear line drawn in the sand for as long as she could remember- that she was welcome as a guest (albeit always semi-unenthusiastically), but not to stay; her place was down on Earth, with Grace.

If they ever did stay up there, they shared the room Grace had, decorated exactly to her tastes, or Vanya would stay in one of the guest rooms with nothing but the bare necessities and a rather tacky amount of gold, as she would come to realise in later years.

Although it was never said out loud, the implicit message was clear; you don’t belong here and, furthermore, you are not wanted. Not for a night, not for an eternity.

(Vanya supposed there was a reason people often prefer passive-aggressiveness to outright aggressiveness. It’s easier to imagine whatever you’re doing is alright, until you hear your motives in the stark light of day- they never do sound good.

Unfortunately, it had been a long time since the Olympians had spent a day in the sun.)

So of course, the time Vanya had realised that maybe she didn’t mind not having a room in Olympus, because maybe she didn’t want to _be_ there, was _right_ about the time that she was airlifted out of the Underworld and put into a room that was “hers”.

Really, it was just a guest room with a lock on the outside and bars on the windows (however seemingly gold and delicate, Vanya resented their presence).

It all happened too fast for Vanya to really remember. Fortunately, she had plenty of time to organise her thoughts and opinions, because there was nothing else to do.

When things happen, there are a few parts to this sequence.

The first is Before- you don’t know what’s going to happen, or maybe you do and aren’t thinking about it.

The second is Happening- when everything either falls apart or comes together or does both simultaneously. When blood is hot as fire and things fly out that weren’t meant to and nothing can stop this wreck.

The third is After. Almost as soon as it happens, the weight of the situation settles in. The regret sinks to the bottom of your stomach. Nothing can be taken back. In summary, you just realise you’re an idiot.

The fourth is Regret. Or perhaps Reflection, depending on where you fall on the scale of idiocy. Every detail is turned over and wondered about and you wonder how you could have missed the signs, how you could’ve done what you did and didn’t know where the point of no return was.

Vanya was pretty sure there was a fifth part as well. What exactly that entailed, she wasn’t sure.

What she did know was that the first four almost always were overlapping with each other. Because by the time you’ve reached Regret, something else is Happening and you realise that the time period of Regret was also Before but now you’re in After and something is Happening all over again.

Vanya didn’t think she’d ever been in After for so long.

She couldn’t help but replay the encounter over and over and over in her mind. She had no regret. She didn’t reflect on what it all meant. She just kept hearing the words in her head, the faces etched into her memory and the sickening feeling of _wrongness_.

Vanya didn’t remember a lot about that night.

But she did remember sitting in that room that wasn’t hers, brought there by a family that didn’t love her, wondering how this had all somehow become her and Five’s fault, if she would ever see him (or the outside of this room) again.

Perhaps it’s best to forget some things.

-

When Vanya woke up the next morning, it was to a sharp rap on the door. She mumbled something vaguely coherent and synonymous with ‘Come in’, which Diego and Klaus took as both an affirmation of life and an invitation.

“Hey Vanya, we brought you breakfast!” Klaus’ enthusiasm was forced, and a stark contrast to the frown Diego was sporting.

Vanya said, “Thank you,” although she didn’t really know why. Thank you for not starving me?

Klaus placed the tray at the end of her bed. “Sorry we didn’t come to visit earlier. Everyone’s been arguing with Luther about you and Five and everything.”

Vanya noticed Diego’s nearly imperceptible wince at Five’s name but didn’t have time to address it. She glanced between the two of them. “Why is everyone arguing?”

Diego and Klaus shared a look before Diego took a half step forward. “We all disagree on how we should have handled this situation-”

(“Handled _you,”_ went unsaid, because sometimes all the disagreements and love in the world won’t change the fact that people expect the respect of treating someone as a person to be earned)

Diego continued, “-and Luther’s gone and pulled the king of gods card. It’s all been a bit hectic.”

“So what would you have me do?” Vanya asked, trying not to let bitterness poison her words.

“I don’t agree with how Luther has done this, but you do need help with your powers,” Diego said. “You need to learn control, Vanya.”

_I already have,_ Vanya wanted to scream. _Maybe I just don’t want to control them around people who want to control me._

Before Vanya could gear up to tell them exactly what she thought of this whole idea, Klaus produced something from behind his back.

“Here’s a wild idea, how about we don’t fight for a moment and show how much we love each other.” Klaus offered her a stack of writings that Vanya grinned at. “We brought you some books so you can read while you’re here.”

(Grace had never really let her read, and Vanya felt as if she had so much to catch up on.)

“And I brought you one of Ben’s lyres- he’s got too many anyway, and we thought it’d be nice to hear you playing again.” Diego handed her the instrument with an awkward sort of smile.

Vanya was quite well aware that these were bribes, to try and make this cage feel a little less like one. Nevertheless, they were thoughtful bribes and Vanya wasn’t really in the position to reject anyone’s kindness.

Diego and Klaus made a move to leave and Vanya couldn’t help herself. “How’s my mother?”

“She’s fine,” Klaus assured her, half turning back to look her in the eyes.

“She doesn’t know about Luther’s change of plans,” Diego added. He always did have a soft spot for Grace.

“And Five?” Vanya asked. In her voice, in her eyes was a plea. _Say he’s ok, I love him please don’t hurt him._

“We don’t know,” Klaus told her.

Though if she’d looked in Diego’s eyes, she would have seen that wasn’t quite true.

-

It wasn’t until hours later that Vanya received another visitor.

She was so hungry that she almost contemplated eating the pomegranate Five had given her from the tree- somehow, she had managed to keep a hold of it during her kidnapping. But there wasn’t anything she would loathe more than being bound to Olympus- it would make Luther’s job too easy.

So Vanya sat, filled with nothing but air and spite. People often underestimate the power of spite- it can be quite the motivator.

She had already tested the window bars- frustratingly strong- and now she just watched the way the light fell through the window, signalling it was nearing midday.

When she heard the knock on the door, she knew it was Ben. It sounded exhausted and disappointed, like regret for a life you don’t know how to fix. As he came in, Vanya took in his appearance. He looked weary, his face drawn with tension and a sadness he couldn’t shake. She didn’t say anything.

“Hi,” Ben said finally. His voice sounded hoarse.

“Hi,” Vaya replied softly.

He sat down on the edge of her bed, not knowing what to say. “He wouldn’t budge.”

Vanya nodded; she had assumed as much. “Thanks for trying.”

It was quiet again. “I should have protected you and Five. Told you they were coming. I didn’t know until it was happening.”

“There’s not much you could have done,” Vanya said. There was a pause. “And it wouldn’t have mattered. You wouldn’t have changed his mind, and we wouldn’t have done anything differently.”

Silence often echoes louder than any explosion ever will.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

Sorry never really is as good as not doing it in the first place though, is it?

-

Vanya was allowed out of her room for dinner. She thought she would have rathered stay in.

She had never noticed how her family kept watch on her out the corner of their eye, like a rabid animal just waiting to attack, as if she were to explode at any moment. Now it was impossible not to notice. Vanya hated to say she revelled in it, just a little. That she, the ever-invisible, constant disappointment, was something that made Luther hesitate, Allison to inhale sharply.

People often forget that with the spring flowers come the spring storms. The beauty of the blooms is only ever short-lived; spring is brief but bright and blinding and intoxicating. The balance of life and death is a fine one to walk, in the give and take to be sure that everything remains stable. So while people think of the blossoms of spring, perhaps they should consider their fickleness, how quickly the most beautiful fall to their fates. Her family would have done well to remember that.

Then again, the Olympians never had been good at learning balance.

The meal was excruciating.

Surely it was bad enough that they were keeping her here- they didn’t have to rub it in, to pretend as if she had any illusion of freedom. Apparently not, however, as Luther continued (in vain) to make attempts at small talk.

The sound of chewing was practically deafening.

“The weather’s lovely at the moment, isn’t it?”

_I don’t know, Luther,_ Vanya wanted to snap _, I haven’t been outside all day._

Luther seemed to take the hint, and they lapsed into silence once again.

Vanya could barely look up from her plate. She was filled with rage and sadness and surprise but not, because this was her _family_ but this was _her_ family. It was almost expected, in an entirely unexpected way, that they would pull something like this.

“So Vanya, we hear you’re quite good at the lyre. Would you like to play for us?”

Vanya recognised Allison’s statement for what it was- a peace offering, an apology, an olive branch.

To be asked to play on Olympus was to be acknowledged as one of the best- even though she was family by blood, Vanya had finally seemed to earn that privilege. It was something she had wanted to do for years; it had been why she practiced so much and worked so hard that her fingers bruised and blistered and bled. It was concrete proof that she had talent, that she was the best.

It was the only thing she had thought would ever make Grace proud.

“No. Thank you.”

Vanya already knew she was the best. Vanya knew Grace’s approval was no longer what she aspired to. It can be hard to let go of old goals and dreams, especially when you realise you don’t quite know what your new dream is.

Vanya didn’t really know what she was going to do with her eternity. Right now, all she wanted was to play her violin and grow her flowers, to be in the Underworld with Five and to be free.

Luther’s head jolted up, recognising the slight. “You don’t want to play on _Olympus_?”

Vanya shrugged, knowing it would irritate him. And sure enough…

“This is practically paradise. You can play in the _Underworld_ , but not here?” Luther asked incredulously.

“Doesn’t feel like paradise to me,” Vanya replied boldly, making eye contact for the first time.

Allison’s hostess smile faltered, a fact that did not escape Luther. His expression turned thunderous, “Apologise to my wife, now. You have no right to-”

“To what? An opinion?” Vanya asked. “You haven’t cared about me the entirety of my life. You have no right to tell me how to feel and what to do. And you have _no right_ to keep me here or make me sit through these dinners to pretend as if we’re a family.”

Vanya rose from her chair as Luther stared at her, shocked by her outburst. “May I go back to my cell? I’m suddenly not very hungry.”

-

When Vanya got back to her room, she was pissed.

How dare they? How dare they ignore and neglect her all her life and the second she wasn’t running back to them, becoming her own person, they up and decide to take an interest in her life? And locking her up; what was she- a caged animal?

Moreover, they didn’t even _ask_ her for her opinion.

The Olympians got Grace onside then charged in headfirst, without any thought of the consequences and fallout of their actions. They hadn’t even considered her as a person- the bare minimum someone had to do, to just care a little bit about the impacts of their actions on others, and yet it was beyond the mighty Olympians.

Vanya took up Ben’s lyre- as always, music was her salve. Not this time, though.

She had barely begun to play when she felt her powers taking over, brought out by emotions as they always were. A wind picked up around her and she felt the instrument shaking in her hand, maybe the floor trembling underneath her.

Vanya didn’t quite remember what she played then. She remembered it was wild and angry, but not much else. The only other thing she could recall was a sequence of notes as she became angrier all over again. That, one by one, each of the strings snapped with a final useless _twang_ as the tension left them.

But still, she couldn’t stop- she didn’t want to. Until she couldn’t play anymore because the entire thing- made of wood, of nature that she could control- shattered into a million splinters.

Well. That had never happened with her violin before.

If she had been in the Underworld, she would have curbed the raging river she could feel inside herself. Vanya would have shot a grin to Five as she eased the storm, let the vines crawling across the ground come to a stop until the final flower bloomed and there was silence.

But she was not in the Underworld. And Vanya didn’t think she cared about restoring balance in Olympus.

So she focused- on the sound of wind in the trees, of leaves rustling, on the almost inaudible heartbeat of nature. Vanya listened, and she did not get just a drop- she brought the whole _fucking_ river.

Trees sprouted from the marble itself- perhaps already dead, or to die quickly, but Vanya didn’t care. Creepers tightened themselves on the walls, drawing cracks across the whole room The door seemed to cave in on itself, morphing out of shape so far that it could never be repaired.

Vanya stepped through it.

As she made her way down the hallway, the vines followed her, creeping along the passage. She blew past the dining room, already feeling the plants crushing the foundations, flowers springing up to tarnish the gold with their sap until it was unrecognisable.

Ben had felt the trembles. He knew she was coming. He managed to leap through the doorway before an impenetrable thicket grew across it.

“Vanya!”

She turned; eyebrow raised.

“There’s something you need to know about Five.”

-

Tartarus is not so much a physical eternal burning as it is a mental anguish. While your physical form is roasted and pulled apart one limb at a time only to be reassembled to do it again, your mind is polluted.

Every encounter or bad thought you’ve ever had is played over and over. Imagination and reality blend until it’s a horror of horrors. No longer can you tell what’s real and fake, and every bit of hope is slowly crushed from your soul.

_The red lighting really doesn’t help set the mood,_ Five thought. _Neither does being in here with a bunch of immortals who hate your guts. Particularly_ Reginald _._

When the Olympians had thrown their father in here for an eternity, Five had rather been under the impression that he wouldn’t have to see him again. It had taken centuries for Five to forget about the last thing Reginald had said to him- “I’ll see you soon”- and to discover the old man had been right was a particularly bitter pill to swallow.

Fortunately, after having been in Tartarus for centuries, Reginald wasn’t particularly sane. The most he’d been able to get out was _I told you so_ , though Five had heard it over in his head a million times.

It probably didn’t help that every second felt as if it lasted a minute, and time was so distorted that Five couldn’t remember how long he had been there.

He hoped he wouldn’t ever be here for as long as his father had.

But how would he know if he was?

-

Later, people would whisper about the tree that came down from Mount Olympus, larger and greater than anything they had seen before. They would tell of how the sky seemed to darken, how the plants shook wildly in anger.

Those who were more daring would continue in hushed voices about how the woman alighted from the tree’s broadest branch, of how she cracked the earth open and followed the river that sang of Death.

That was the day people learnt that Vanya’s rage knew no bounds.

-

Somehow, Vanya found the cavern she was looking for, pomegranates growing freely. Her grin was nothing like anyone in the Underworld had seen before.

-

Five remembered that seeing her again was like seeing her for the first time.

His eyes had been closed, but he felt her presence in the Underworld. He thought he was dreaming. If so, never before would he have been so glad not to wake up.

He remembered her slipping her hand in his and as he followed her, he remembered stepping on the growth she left in her wake.

He remembered the long walk up, not daring to open his eyes, even as he felt his arms cut by rocks jutting out of the wall.

He remembered knowing he was coming to the end because he could hear Delores barking.

He remembered coming out of that passage, of feeling like he had drunk water for the first time.

He remembered opening his eyes to see her and never having felt so relieved.

He noticed the tears in her clothes, her wide grin. He noticed the red around her mouth, the way the Underworld seemed brighter, her mussed air. He noticed the fruit in her hand, and he forgot how to breathe. He noticed the crown she wore, and he swore his heart stopped.

It seemed to be made of liquid stone, for want of a better description. Undoubtedly it was obsidian, with its smooth black and slightly greenish lilt in some lights, but so delicately was it carved that it looked more as if it were a daisy chain turned stone than anything else.

“You- ”

“Yes,” she nodded.

Five’s confession was more a sigh than anything. “I love you.”

When Vanya’s lips met his, all Five could taste was the promise of a pomegranate.

-

An eternity is a long time.

Long enough to patch things up with your family, no matter how complicated. Long enough to teach Ben how to play the violin and have family dinners in the Underworld.

Long enough to grow forests in the Underworld for souls to play on. Long enough to teach Delores how not to step on flowers and to replace the Handler and for Hazel and Agnes to have a well-deserved vacation every once in a while.

Long enough for two gods to fall in love, to both change and to fall in love with the new people they became all over again.

An eternity is a long time. But sometimes, even an eternity cannot be long enough.


End file.
